The Department of Homeland Security is in talks with a reality T.V. show producer about a game show in which immigrant contestants would compete for U.S. citizenship. What would be a shocking story for any other White House is a fitting development for an administration fixated on melding policy with sadistic entertainment.
According to The Wall Street Journal, television producer Rob Worsoff says he has been pitching the idea for the show as far back as the Obama administration, but the project didn’t come together. Worsoff, whose credits include the reality show “Duck Dynasty,” told the Journal that the show is meant to be hopeful, that the contestants would be legal immigrants, and that losing would not result in deportation.
Even if this show doesn’t come to fruition, the fact that the Trump administration is even considering it — and unafraid to admit it to reporters — is damning.
It’s unclear how far along the process is, but the Journal reports that DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin “said she had spoken to the producer of the proposed television reality show and that consideration of the idea was ongoing,” and Worsoff described the feedback from DHS as positive. According to the Journal, Worsoff said he has had no interaction with DHS Secretary Kristi Noem “and isn’t aware of whether she has knowledge of his show idea.”
The concept, even if ostensibly framed as optimistic, is at best tasteless, and at worst it could be a form of dystopian art that evokes the universe of “The Hunger Games” or “Squid Game.” There’s no way to disentangle such a show from the policy backdrop of the Trump administration’s demonization of migrants as “poisoning the blood” of the country, its brutal mass deportation regime, and its assault on due process and free speech rights along the way.
Huge swaths of the migrant population in the U.S. are made up of people attempting to escape persecution, violence and destitution. It seems cruel to derive entertainment from people desperate to stay in the country as so many others are expelled as part of a right-wing nationalist campaign.
Even if this show doesn’t come to fruition, the fact that the Trump administration is even considering it — and unafraid to admit it to reporters — is damning. It’s also unsurprising, insofar as the administration has often sought to use art and memes that celebrate the pain of migrants to help give license to its brutal mass deportation regime. Moreover, Noem has fixated on photo ops while standing in front of ICE raids and El Salvador’s vicious megaprison, inviting the public to celebrate the mechanics of migrant detainment and incarceration. Trump and those around him are quick to turn everything into a game or a laugh, most often at the expense of those most vulnerable among us.
Zeeshan Aleem is a writer and editor for MS NOW. He primarily writes about politics and foreign policy.